Hands up all those in sales?
It’s astonishing when I ask audiences this question to see how few raise their hands! Unless it is a sales team!
We are ALL in sales of some sort!
Whether it is ‘selling’ a product or an idea or having a conversation or convincing someone else to do what we want them to do, it’s all selling!
As a physiotherapist, I used to have to sell the idea to people that although I was going to hurt them, it was for their own good! I would have to sell them my trustworthiness, my competence, my caring and instill them with confidence in themselves and me.
Teachers are in sales, just like physios and speakers! I can’t think of a profession or job where we have no component of sales in it. Even if you work in a solitary manner, there are usually other people who depend on what you do, you are ‘selling’ competence as they need to trust your capacity to deliver.
Anyone who interacts with anyone else in some way sells something! If you are trying to influence anyone or thing, you are in sales!
Recently, there is research into sales trying to find reasons for the success of consistently high performing professionals.
There isn’t too much rocket science there though!
When we talk about sales, we are talking about selling products, ideas, concepts, policies, rules, yourself, treatments, expertise (in other words, anything) to other people.
Sales is a label for a complex matrix of connection, communication, trust, competence, expertise, non verbal skills, mindsets, capacity to read people, empathy, engagement, listening, language, perceptions, epigenetics, neuroscience and a whole lot more!
But if we Get Real About Sales , there is not a lot of new material to change things. It’s about doing what we already know to do, with more elegance, authenticity and integrity. And developing in areas where we can grow and become the best we can be.
So how do we teach those?
I came up with a Mnemonic!
That is just a small sample of what we can cover when we talk about sales and how to improve them in every area of life. How to have more influence and joy-fully live in whatever you are doing.
Amanda Gore
